Posts: 14

Topic: Problem dumping LaserLock protected disc.

I have a disc, Outcast (German) (Disc 2), which uses LaserLock protection and I can't seem to get a consistent dump from this.The disc has one data track and multiple audio tracks, only the data track is different every time the audio tracks always match.

Is it even possible to dump this reliably?I'm using DIC with PX-W4824A.Command line is "DiscImageCreator.exe cd w: oc2\oc2.cue 8 /c2 /rc"

Re: Problem dumping LaserLock protected disc.

RingProtech: Maybe when first bad sector occurs (N), attempt to read K sectors at position (N+100). If all K sectors are read then you're after bad area. If there's still error read sectors at position (N+200) and so on till you find good area. Once good area is found, read backwards and find first good sector (N+X). Now you know what bad area spans from N till N+X. Fill it with error pattern...

I have two RingPROTECH games and one LaserLock. it should work for them considering there's only 1 bad errored area...

Re: Problem dumping LaserLock protected disc.

CodeLock and LaserLock are similar in that you try to get as many readable sectors as possible with one or more non-plextor drives until you get consistent results. CodeLock patterns can vary: http://redump.org/discs/quicksearch/cod … tion/only/LaserLock usually has around 12 unreadable areas of 78-82 errors. See the comments for some examples: http://redump.org/discs/quicksearch/las … tion/only/For such discs I use CDTool to browse back manually from the end of each error area and recover as many readable sectors as possible (going back and forth between sectors and rereading sectors multiple times until the drive is able to read them) and inject them into the non-plextor CDM/clonecd data track dump image with a hex editor. For LaserLock discs this means several hours of manual work for each disc and you would need a drive with a powerful laser to grab all readable sectors (Sony Optiarc 7280 gives me the best results, but surely other Optiarc and other brands could work fine too.. it's a process of trial and error).

Re: Problem dumping LaserLock protected disc.

So basically read the data track as many times as possible with different drives and do a sector compare?I could use a python script to compare the single sectors, the sectors which never match must be the bad ones.

Re: Problem dumping LaserLock protected disc.

TheRetroPirate wrote:

So basically read the data track as many times as possible with different drives and do a sector compare?I could use a python script to compare the single sectors, the sectors which never match must be the bad ones.

Ripping the CodeLock by plextor with 0xd8, the strange string can be seen.

beware the jabberwock my son the jaws that bite the claws that snatch

CDManipulator and CloneCD recognize the sector including this string as error sector.Game: Rune http://redump.org/disc/31708/hex editor of sector 2327 http://www.imagebam.com/image/0b922f533425871Left is ripped by plextor PX-W5224A with 0xd8, right is ripped by TSSTcorp DVD-ROM TS-H353A.Do you think this CDM/CloneCD (right) images are correct? If you so, what is the reason?

The error count seems to be 1 more for each range than what you calculated?If 2137 is the first error and 2194 the last, then the total errors in that range is 58.

And please check with your Plextor drive if the start of each error range is the same everywhere as those combined results? It's possible that one of the non-Plextor drives starts 1 sector earlier on some ranges. I don't know why this happens, but I've seen this happen on some drives (my Plextor drives and the Optiarc one always give the same start sector for each range).As for the end sectors, you can't say for sure if the current results are final, unless you do a manual check. It's possible that some sectors are readable but only after multiple retries. It's really tricky.It would probably be a good idea if I purchase this game as well, so that we can verify these results. Is this the disc that you're trying to dump? http://ogdb.eu/imageview.php?image_id=1 … mp;limit=0 (with the same ringcode?)Or maybe you have one of the other LaserLock titles that is already dumped, and you could try to verify it. Then we'll know for sure that your method is reliable.

edit: I just bought Outcast, so we should be able to compare results by the end of the week.

Ripping the CodeLock by plextor with 0xd8, the strange string can be seen.

beware the jabberwock my son the jaws that bite the claws that snatch

CDManipulator and CloneCD recognize the sector including this string as error sector.Game: Rune http://redump.org/disc/31708/hex editor of sector 2327 http://www.imagebam.com/image/0b922f533425871Left is ripped by plextor PX-W5224A with 0xd8, right is ripped by TSSTcorp DVD-ROM TS-H353A.Do you think this CDM/CloneCD (right) images are correct? If you so, what is the reason?

I don't know which dump is 'correct', but if I had to choose between 2 dumps with different error count, I would pick the one with the least amount of errors.. Especially if only 1 brand (Plextor) gives different results for whatever reason and most other drives give consistent results.

Re: Problem dumping LaserLock protected disc.

Jackal wrote:

The error count seems to be 1 more for each range than what you calculated?If 2137 is the first error and 2194 the last, then the total errors in that range is 58.

And please check with your Plextor drive if the start of each error range is the same everywhere as those combined results? It's possible that one of the non-Plextor drives starts 1 sector earlier on some ranges. I don't know why this happens, but I've seen this happen on some drives (my Plextor drives and the Optiarc one always give the same start sector for each range).As for the end sectors, you can't say for sure if the current results are final, unless you do a manual check. It's possible that some sectors are readable but only after multiple retries. It's really tricky.It would probably be a good idea if I purchase this game as well, so that we can verify these results. Is this the disc that you're trying to dump? http://ogdb.eu/imageview.php?image_id=1 … mp;limit=0 (with the same ringcode?)Or maybe you have one of the other LaserLock titles that is already dumped, and you could try to verify it. Then we'll know for sure that your method is reliable.

edit: I just bought Outcast, so we should be able to compare results by the end of the week.

Yeah it's of by one because I forgot to add one to the result.This is comparing the 5 dumps I have from track 1, each sector that is unique across all dumps is considered bad and if the same sector matches across multiple dumps it's good. I'm simply doing a binary compare of all sectors across all dumps.Also I checked the good ranges most sectors match 5/5 but not all do.

Code "Sonopress ROMM Z-3580-2/OUTCAST2/2 B" looks good.This is the only LaserLock title I have currently.

I was reading about twin sectors somewhere but I don't know if LaserLock uses them.DIC also supports reading the disc in reverse but the /rc switch seems to be ignored as it tries to reread all failed sectors with c2 errors.

With some more dumps I'm down to 604 bad sectors.I'll attach my current log file which includes checksums for all sectors, good ranges as well as bad ranges.Log checksums explained, all checksums are sha1.

Re: Problem dumping LaserLock protected disc.

Could you write down the ranges and sector count like you did before but after the fixes?

And you should always have /RC switch enabled for DIC when dumping error sectors! so that the user data gets the 0x55 pattern like CDM/CloneCD does. If you forgot this in previous dumps then plz fix them.

I will post my results later this week or early next week, when my copy arrives.